Roots Archives Forum

I quite like Perry's modern babbling records, they are quite good to put on and zone out to, but if you actually want to actively listen to some tunes rather than have background noise then they are quite annoying

the pum pum thing is just weak, even as a joke its boring

Funky Punk,
Last time i saw him (few weeks ago) he sang various classic from other artists, like "To Be A Lover", "Curly Locks", etc. (He can't sing though.)

i seriously doubt he wrote any of those songs. appropriated the publishing credits, yeah, but wrote them? i doubt it.

and as for being a "rasta", i doubt he ever was. his most famous falling out was with congos etc over them being devil rastas and unclean and all that that may or may not have led him to torch the ark(depends on which story you believe) but the guy was never a rasta as far as i know.

mick, so those were uk releases only but it still dont explain why ernie b doesnt stock them...he stocks lots of uk only releases.

one love
jah bill

jb welda wrote:i seriously doubt he wrote any of those songs. appropriated the publishing credits, yeah, but wrote them? i doubt it.

and as for being a "rasta", i doubt he ever was. his most famous falling out was with congos etc over them being devil rastas and unclean and all that that may or may not have led him to torch the ark(depends on which story you believe) but the guy was never a rasta as far as i know.

Where did you read/hear that as a matter of interest? I'd always thought that Perry was/is a rasta, based on the content of his songs (mentions of Jah, dreadlocks, Babylon, etc.) and the Selassie-fied iconography of the Black Ark in the photos that I've seen.

Back in the day, wasn't it the case that reggae musicians accused each other of being 'false rastas' and questioned their 'dread cred' pretty much whenever they had a falling-out over something?

btw - was 'Dreadlocks In Moonlight' aimed at Jacob Miller? I was once told that (or perhaps I read it online somewhere).

Well Charge wrote:Funky Punk,
Last time i saw him (few weeks ago) he sang various classic from other artists, like "To Be A Lover", "Curly Locks", etc. (He can't sing though.)

I'm currently trying to imagine him singing Murvin/Congos songs in the required falsetto.

He'd probably have to keep punching himself in the nuts onstage...

dont recall but ive been reading essentially that since the 80s. probably david katz's book on perry says something about it. all that iconography is just that: drawings on the wall and fashion business. like i said i doubt lee perry was ever a serious rasta and like i said he went through a long period post ark having nothing at all good to say about rastafari, or for that matter, bob marley. he made it sound like he was being held captive by rastas when he had the ark and burned it down to get himself out of their grasp and not give them somewhere to congregate every day.

anyway he lost any credibility with me a long time ago. even though he occasionally releases something of merit, most of it is beneath consideration as anything other than a joke.

one love
jah bill

Okay, fair enough. I only really know Scratch from his music/productions and whatever I've gleaned from write-ups on various websites.

One story I'd heard about the Black Ark fire was that Scratch burned the place down after a bunch of gangsters, hustlers, junkies and other miscellaneous lowlife (dunno if any of them claimed rasta or not) started hanging around there every day, demanding money, threatening him, abusing his hospitality and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

On the other hand, other accounts say that it went up because of a simple, boring wiring fault when he was in the middle of refurbishing it...

The "boring wiring fault" is more or less how it happened. There was an ill-fated attempt to resurrect the Black Ark in 1980, but Scratch sabotaged and vandalized all of the work. Then a couple of years later a wiring fault sparked a blaze that sent the whole place up in flames.

This was one of the real revelations of David Katz' *People Funny Boy*: that the best known incident in the lore surrounding Lee Perry - that he torched his studio in a fit of madness or rage - in fact never happened.

>Scratch sabotaged and vandalized all of the work

what an idiot and complete a$$. wasted peoples time and money and energy.

one love
jah bill

jb welda wrote:i seriously doubt he wrote any of those songs. appropriated the publishing credits, yeah, but wrote them? i doubt it.

and as for being a "rasta", i doubt he ever was. his most famous falling out was with congos etc over them being devil rastas and unclean and all that that may or may not have led him to torch the ark(depends on which story you believe) but the guy was never a rasta as far as i know.

mick, so those were uk releases only but it still dont explain why ernie b doesnt stock them...he stocks lots of uk only releases.

one love
jah bill

scratch have always selassie pictures around him. also jr byles never grow his locks but fade away is an anthem for any Ras Ta world wide.
dont get yourself twisted by trying to sort out the man heart. scratch is a fallen angel but I & I honor him still. its like a lost brother, you cant really deny ya family as long dem nuh murder and violate still.